Topic: Thoughts on Statistics versus Reality (Speed limits)

[rrocket]

But then again I think how City of Edmonton estimates it'll cost $3 billion to upgrade a 5km section of Terwillegar Dr to a freeway with terrain as easy as it gets (mind you, including new interchanges at Whitemud and Anthony Henday) and suddenly half a billion to carve a wider highway into the side of a rock isn't such a bad deal.

Road construction costs in BC are ridiculously low compared to Alberta.  The overpasses on the Henday were $250M-$500M a pop, and crap like that.  That stretch of the TCH between Field and Golden only cost $250M for all that twinning over the Kicking Horse River.  In Alberta?  Holy hell I can't imagine what the cost would have been.  Billions and billions for sure.

Why?

Good question.

They just started building a new bridge from Windsor to Detroit. $3.8 billion. Supposed to take until 2024.  Snapped a pic of some of the first spans being put down for the access lanes the other night...

[erich]

But then again I think how City of Edmonton estimates it'll cost $3 billion to upgrade a 5km section of Terwillegar Dr to a freeway with terrain as easy as it gets (mind you, including new interchanges at Whitemud and Anthony Henday) and suddenly half a billion to carve a wider highway into the side of a rock isn't such a bad deal.

Road construction costs in BC are ridiculously low compared to Alberta.  The overpasses on the Henday were $250M-$500M a pop, and crap like that.  That stretch of the TCH between Field and Golden only cost $250M for all that twinning over the Kicking Horse River.  In Alberta?  Holy hell I can't imagine what the cost would have been.  Billions and billions for sure.

Why?

The Alberta advantage

[pi314]

Oh, and the Henday for some reason requires resurfacing every six years.  I couldn't understand why the stretch on the SW end of the city was being redone, and neither could anyone else.  It hit the press that the road design requires a redo every six years, which threw a huge wrench in traffic for the summer.

Then we have the bridge fiascoes where they used crap steel and the construction time went YEARS overdue.  It took longer to upgrade the tiny bridge on 102Ave downtown over Groat Road than it took to build the Confederation Bridge to PEI.  The Groat Bridge is slated to take how many years?  OMG.  The original bridge was done in a fraction of the time.

It's far faster and cheaper to build new infrastructure than to upgrade/maintain existing stuff while upgrade takes place.

I've been amazed at how cheaply things get done in BC despite the astronomical real estate costs. Labour is still cheap somehow.

[dkaz]

I got into a new business and will likely expand to Kelowna at some point. I considered Vancouver as well but when I heard how much my indirect competition was charging, I thought I would have to pay my staff peanuts to be able to compete and/or work on razor thin margins. I left Vancouver because of that and I’m not interested in being part of the problem, so no thank you. Kelowna is not as bad because they seem to value community and relationships over price, as long as the price isn’t outrageous.

[jamie1]

I got into a new business and will likely expand to Kelowna at some point. I considered Vancouver as well but when I heard how much my indirect competition was charging, I thought I would have to pay my staff peanuts to be able to compete and/or work on razor thin margins. I left Vancouver because of that and I’m not interested in being part of the problem, so no thank you. Kelowna is not as bad because they seem to value community and relationships over price, as long as the price isn’t outrageous.

??

[dkaz]

I got into a new business and will likely expand to Kelowna at some point. I considered Vancouver as well but when I heard how much my indirect competition was charging, I thought I would have to pay my staff peanuts to be able to compete and/or work on razor thin margins. I left Vancouver because of that and I’m not interested in being part of the problem, so no thank you. Kelowna is not as bad because they seem to value community and relationships over price, as long as the price isn’t outrageous.

??

This whole talk on why construction is infinitely more expensive in Alberta than BC.

[bridgecity]

But then again I think how City of Edmonton estimates it'll cost $3 billion to upgrade a 5km section of Terwillegar Dr to a freeway with terrain as easy as it gets (mind you, including new interchanges at Whitemud and Anthony Henday) and suddenly half a billion to carve a wider highway into the side of a rock isn't such a bad deal.

Road construction costs in BC are ridiculously low compared to Alberta.  The overpasses on the Henday were $250M-$500M a pop, and crap like that.  That stretch of the TCH between Field and Golden only cost $250M for all that twinning over the Kicking Horse River.  In Alberta?  Holy hell I can't imagine what the cost would have been.  Billions and billions for sure.

Why?

Good question.

Construction season length/winter is a big part of it.

[rrocket]

But then again I think how City of Edmonton estimates it'll cost $3 billion to upgrade a 5km section of Terwillegar Dr to a freeway with terrain as easy as it gets (mind you, including new interchanges at Whitemud and Anthony Henday) and suddenly half a billion to carve a wider highway into the side of a rock isn't such a bad deal.

Road construction costs in BC are ridiculously low compared to Alberta.  The overpasses on the Henday were $250M-$500M a pop, and crap like that.  That stretch of the TCH between Field and Golden only cost $250M for all that twinning over the Kicking Horse River.  In Alberta?  Holy hell I can't imagine what the cost would have been.  Billions and billions for sure.

Why?

Good question.

Construction season length/winter is a big part of it.

But a lot of provinces/cities have gnarly winters....

[bridgecity]

But then again I think how City of Edmonton estimates it'll cost $3 billion to upgrade a 5km section of Terwillegar Dr to a freeway with terrain as easy as it gets (mind you, including new interchanges at Whitemud and Anthony Henday) and suddenly half a billion to carve a wider highway into the side of a rock isn't such a bad deal.

Road construction costs in BC are ridiculously low compared to Alberta.  The overpasses on the Henday were $250M-$500M a pop, and crap like that.  That stretch of the TCH between Field and Golden only cost $250M for all that twinning over the Kicking Horse River.  In Alberta?  Holy hell I can't imagine what the cost would have been.  Billions and billions for sure.

Why?

Good question.

Construction season length/winter is a big part of it.

But a lot of provinces/cities have gnarly winters....

Yes they do. I thought the comparison was construction costs between BC and Alberta.

[Scaerio]

They just started building a new bridge from Windsor to Detroit. $3.8 billion. Supposed to take until 2024.  Snapped a pic of some of the first spans being put down for the access lanes the other night...

Gordie Howe Bridge.

[dkaz]

I lived in Windsor back in the days.

[rrocket]

They just started building a new bridge from Windsor to Detroit. $3.8 billion. Supposed to take until 2024.  Snapped a pic of some of the first spans being put down for the access lanes the other night...

Gordie Howe Bridge.

Dumb name IMO...

[rrocket]

No ??

[tooscoops]

It must bend at 90° so it looks like a flying elbow. (Only half joking)

I feel that the safer cars are a bigger saviours than a lowering of the limit. Volvos plan of zero fatalities has no mention of speed limits, or how many cars are on the road, etc... but they still have a realistic plan of zero accident deaths. Tells me that the vehicles themselves are way more responsible than 10km/he could ever be.

[mlin32]

It must bend at 90° so it looks like a flying elbow. (Only half joking)

I feel that the safer cars are a bigger saviours than a lowering of the limit. Volvos plan of zero fatalities has no mention of speed limits, or how many cars are on the road, etc... but they still have a realistic plan of zero accident deaths. Tells me that the vehicles themselves are way more responsible than 10km/he could ever be.

But as a government, you cannot force your citizens to go out and buy new cars. Macron tried that (hike fuel tax, new car rebates) and well........gilet jaunes  . Most "real" French are puttering around in 10-15 year old cars.

"real" = those living outside Paris

[mmret]

The trade off is one of those incalculable things. If you want zero deaths go with a 1km per hour limit. Or even ban cars. That’s the logical conclusion of a preference for safety above all else.

Or those who say “well that’s a slippery slope fallacy” — yes it is. But it highlights an important point: we haven’t agreed as a society as to the utility function of speed over safety. Both are good, but what trade off are we willing to make? There must be some point where we are willing to say that we are willing to accept # more deaths for # more speed. And vice versa. We must price death.

We need to have the data and then make a trade off. Of course different people will have different utilities hence there will always be a debate, a heated one, even if we are already at the optimal trade off for society as a whole.

TLDR the pendulum swings forever.

[OliverD]

The cost of death is extremely high. In urbanized areas, designing streets for even slightly lower speeds (say 40 km/h vs 50 km/h) has a huge impact on crash, injury, and death statistics.

I think a fundamental issue is that we prioritize motorized vehicular traffic over everything else. After decades of doing that, it seems absurd to most people that we should shift away from that, because they don't see that there are viable alternatives.

[quadzilla]

I still don't understand why subdivisions have a 50 kph speed limit. Should be 40 max.

[dkaz]

I agree. I don’t like doing more than 40 on residential streets. Too many kids running around. Calgary was looking at reducing residential streets to 40 and there was mad outrage.

[quadzilla]

Of course they are outraged. Now driving through their subdivision will take an extra 2 seconds. Times 2 / day x 7 days a week x 52 weeks a year and all of sudden they have lost 1456 seconds every year. How will they ever get that back.